Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

By Kamal NaamaREUTERS • Saturday February 2, 2013 6:27 AM

Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoKhalid Mohammed | associated pressSunnis chant anti-government slogans as they wave Iraqi flags and hold posters of slain protesters. An al-Qaida-affiliated group called on Sunnis to take up arms against the Shiite majority.

Sunni outrage erupted in late December over what protesters see as abuses and discrimination
against their minority sect since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the rise of the country’s Shiite
majority.

Waving the old three-star Iraqi flag from Saddam’s era, Sunni clerics, tribal sheikhs and young
protesters called for reform of anti-terrorism laws that they say security forces abuse to target
Sunnis and unfairly detain prisoners.

Wary of Islamists inciting Sunni anger, Maliki has offered concessions and freed hundreds of
prisoners. However, Sunni protesters have grown more defiant after soldiers opened fire at a
Falluja city rally, killing five people a week ago.

“We will never forget what the army did to us, not only last Friday, but all of their behavior
has been sectarian against us,” said Omar Al-Jumaili, 51, in Fallujah. “Our new demand: The Iraqi
army should leave this area.”

Sunni ranks are split among moderates and hard-line Islamists who are threatening Iraq’s unity
with a radical demand for an autonomous Sunni fiefdom in western Iraq along the border with Syria,
Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

The protests are evolving in the most serious test yet for Maliki and his fragile government
that splits posts among Shiites, Sunnis and ethnic Kurds, who were already deadlocked over how to
share power for more than a year.

Al-Qaida in Iraq, still active after years of losses against U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, has also
urged Sunni protesters to take up arms, though moderate leaders reject the incitement to
violence.

Al-Qaida claimed a suicide bombing that killed a Fallujah lawmaker last month, and Sunni
Islamist insurgents continue to strike at Shiite targets in an attempt to spark confrontation
between the sects.